The present invention relates to a multimedia mail system which utilizes an analog telephone network, and more particularly to a multimedia mail system which consolidates a voice mail and a text mail.
A prior art multimedia mail system which utilizes an analog telephone network is disclosed in an article "One consideration on user management in a multimedia mail system" (IEICE technical report SE87-1 Institute of Electronics and Communication Engineers of (April, 1987)). In this system, a user calls the mail system by dialing a telephone set to send a message (voice, facsimile or text), which is temporarily stored in a mail box provided for each addressee user, and then automatically delivered to an addressee terminal.
However, in the prior art multimedia mail system, the voice data and the text data cannot be switchably sent in one communication. Since means for automatically detecting voice or data communicated through the analog telephone network and automatically sending the data to a data control circuit and the voice to a voice control circuit is not provided in the prior art, it is difficult to structure a consolidated system for voice mail and text mail.